Monday, August 30, 2010

After very cold weeks we’ve been having 30°C (86°F) days here in Sao Paulo – not very wintery, I admit it, but perfect for ice cream. :)

I bookmarked this delicious recipe last year but never made it during summer – that’s what happens when one has too many recipes on their “to try” list: lots of wonderful ideas to try, but not enough time to do it. :)

I tweaked Natalie’s recipe just a little to use the blackberries and lemons I had around, but she did not mind at all. :)

Start by making the blackberry lemon swirl: combine blackberries, sugar, lemon juice and zest in a small nonreactive saucepan. In a small bowl, whisk together the water and cornstarch and add to the saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it comes to a boil and thickens – while you stir, break the blackberries with a fork so they dissolve into the jam.
Let cool completely.

Now, the cheesecake ice cream: in the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese and sugar until fluffy and smooth. Add the egg and vanilla, mix until creamy and set aside.
Bring the milk to a boil over medium-low heat. Remove from the heat and add ¼ cup of the milk to the cream cheese mixture and mix until combined and smooth. Continue with 2 more quarter cups of milk and then add the entire mixture back to the pan with the rest of the milk.
Stir over medium-low heat until thickened slightly (should take around 3 minutes). Remove from heat, strain mixture and cool for 10 minutes. Combine the zest, heavy cream and cream cheese mixture together then refrigerate for 1 hour. Pour into your ice cream machine and freeze according to manufactures instructions.
When ice cream is thickened and finished freezing, slowly pour in the blackberry lemon syrup and let ‘swirl’ a few times in the machine before turning off - you can also do this by creating layers of the ice cream to a container and adding the syrup between layers , then swirl with a knife a few times.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Knowing how much I adore Donna Hay, my lovely friend Valentina sent me the links to Donna’s appearance in “Master Chef”; after watching the videos my love and admiration for her work are even bigger – she’s so adorable! I liked the videos so much I thought I should share them with you – parts 1, 2 and 3.

Speaking of Donna, these honey cakes come from Off The Shelf – but the poppy seeds and the orange icing are my twists on her recipe.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F; butter twelve ½ cup (120ml) capacity muffin pans.
Place butter, sugar and honey in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well. Fold through the flour, baking powder, salt and poppy seeds.
Spoon the mixture into prepared pans. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and cooked when tested with a skewer. Cool in pans on a wire rack then carefully unmold.
Make the icing: place the icing sugar in a medium bowl and mix in the zest. Gradually add the juice, mixing, until desired consistency. Drizzle the icing over the cooled cakes.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

I know I’ve been using apples like crazy lately, and must confess that I still intend to make a couple of recipes with them before the end of their season. Let me tell you one delicious thing I found out the other day: I never knew apples and passion fruit were so good together. Luckily, Bill did. :)

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F; butter a 2-liter baking dish. Mix together the apples, sugar and passion fruit pulp and put in the dish.

Using your fingertips, rub together the oats, brown sugar, flour and butter to make a crumbly topping. Sprinkle over the fruit and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden.Serve with ice cream, cream or yogurt.

* the passion fruit I used were huge (there’s a photo here), so 4 were enough

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Lightly butter a 20cm (8in) baking pan and line it with aluminum foil leaving an overhang on two opposite sides. Butter the foil.

Start with the crust: in a medium bowl, combine melted butter with sugar, vanilla and salt. Add flour and mix until just incorporated. Press dough evenly over bottom of pan. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until crust is fully baked, well-browned at the edges and golden brown in the center.
Now, the topping: while crust is baking, stir together sugar and flour in a large bowl until well-mixed. Whisk in eggs. Stir in zest and juices. When crust is ready, reduce heat to 150°C/300°F, slide rack with pan out and pour filling onto hot crust. Bake 20 to 25 minutes longer, or until topping no longer jiggles when pan is tapped.

Remove from oven to a wire rack to cool completely. Lift up foil liner and transfer bars to a cutting board. If surface is covered with a thin layer of moist foam (not unusual), blot surface gently with a paper towel to absorb excess moisture; repeat with a fresh piece of paper towel if necessary.
Using a long, sharp knife, cut bars into 16 or 24 daintier bars and sift powdered sugar over bars, if desired. Stored in an airtight container, bars can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.

Friday, August 20, 2010

I love discovering things, and equally like rediscovering them – I bet you all do, too.

After leaving this book unattended for a couple of years – I checked my Amazon account and saw that the book was purchased in June, 2006 – it has found a way lately into my kitchen; after making the soup with tiny omelettes, I went through the book again – 824 pages of it – and bookmarked many, many recipes. This is one of them – a tart that my MIL called “delicious”. :)

Place flour, salt, sugar and yeast into a bowl. Whisk egg with milk and mix into flour mixture. Work in butter and knead to a smooth, thick batter – I used my Kitchen Aid with the hook attachment. Place in a buttered bowl and turn to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a draught-free place for 30 minutes. Knock back dough, then press it into a 22cm buttered pie plate or loose-bottomed flan pan, cover with plastic and allow to recover for 30 minutes (it will have puffed slightly).

Preheat oven to 225°C/437°F. Peel apples, cored them and cut into eighths. Press apple slices into the dough, and sprinkle with the demerara sugar. Place pie plate/flan pan on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 200°C/395°F. Spoon cream over apples and bake for 20 minutes. The top should be slightly caramelized and the tart light and spongy. Eat warm.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

I fear that you’ll probably start thinking of me as the lady whose tart crusts all go wrong – after the shrinking problem, I made another tart and this crust sounded very promising, with the combination of butter and cream cheese. It was easy to put together, I must admit it, but in terms of both flavor and texture I’ve had many, many better ones.

Before you reach for the red square with an “x” in the corner of the page, I beg you to make this lemon cream and serve it with strawberries – you wouldn’t believe how delicious it is.

Start by making the crust: in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, cream cheese and sugar on medium speed until the mixture is smooth and there is no visible chunks of butter or cream cheese, about 5 minutes. Add the flour and salt and mix until just combined.
Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Shape into a flattened disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or overnight – dough can be frozen for up to 1 month; thaw it overnight in the refrigerator before using.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a 27.5cm (11in) round. Fit the dough into a 24cm (9 ½ in) lightly buttered fluted tart pan with removable bottom. Press the dough into the edges of the pan and use a paring knife to trim the excess dough along the top edge. Prick the bottom all over with a fork and freeze until firm, about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
Line the chilled tart with a round of foil, leaving a 2.5cm (1in) overhang. Fill it with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until the edges of the crust are just beginning to turn golden, 15-20 minutes. Remove the foil and the weights/beans. Return the crust to the oven and continue baking until it is golden all over, 15-20 minutes more. Transfer the tart pan to a wire rack and let the tart shell cool completely.
In a medium mixing bowl, whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form. Fold about half of the cream into the lemon curd, then fold in the rest of the cream. Pour the filling into the tart shell and spread it out evenly.
Arrange the strawberries close together in concentric circles over the filling, placing any halved strawberry cut side down. Lightly cover the tart with plastic wrap and refrigerate it until cold, about 1 hour, or up to 4 hours. Remove the outer ring of the pan before serving.
The tart is best eaten the day it is prepared.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

After reading that the lovely Taranii thought I was from Oceania because of the massive amounts of friands around here I might be ready to admit I’m addicted to these delicious and tender little cakes... :)

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter ten ½ cup (120ml) capacity fluted pans.
Place the flour, icing sugar and almond meal in a bowl and stir to combine. Make a well in the center, add the egg whites, butter and vanilla and stir well to combine. Divide batter among prepared pans. Top each with ½ teaspoon of jam and bake for 10-20 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Allow to cool in the pans for 5 minutes then carefully unmold onto a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar before serving, if desired.

in a large bowl, using a large wire whisk, gently beat the eggs, egg whites, demerara sugar, and vanilla together until smooth.

Sift the flour, confectioners’ sugar, cinnamon, ginger and salt together into a medium bowl, then fold into the batter. Finally, fold the melted butter and apple into the batter until completely smooth. The batter should look fairly thin. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours. After chilling, the batter should be thick and very firm.

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 190°C/375°F. Generously butter one madeleine pan*. Fill each shell mold with about 1 tablespoon of batter, depending of their size.Place the pan on a baking sheet and bake until the madeleines are firm and golden brown with a small hump in the center, 10-12 minutes.

Transfer the madeleines to a wire rack, popping them out with the tip of a sharp paring knife, and let cool – it’s important to unmold them right after the oven because they might stick to the pan once cool.

* I got 27 madeleines, being 15 using a 1 tablespoon-capacity molds and 12 using 2 tablespoon-capacity molds

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

My love for mini food can sometimes go well and sometimes not so much – I saw a beautiful maple brûlée tart on DH mag #51 and immediately ran to the kitchen to bake it, but decided to make tartlets instead. The problem is that the pastry shrunk so much there was almost no room for the filling. :S
To solve the situation, I baked the remaining filling in a water bath and ended up with a delicious maple crème brûlée – if I were you, I’d ignore the tartlets and go straight to the ramekin version. :)

Make the pastry: place the flour, sugar and baking powder in the bowl of a food processor and process to combine. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. While the motor is running, gradually add the water and vanilla (mix them together before pouring in the processor). Process just until mixture comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to 3mm thick. Line a lightly buttered 28cm pie pan with the pastry. Prick with a fork and freeze for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F; line the bottom of the pastry with foil, cover with baking weights or beans and bake for 10-15 minutes. Remove the weights/beans and the foil and bake for another 10 minutes or until lightly golden.
Place the milk and cream in a small saucepan over low heat just until boiling. Place the eggs, extra yolks, sugar and maple in a bowl and whisk to combine. Gradually whisk in the milk mixture. Allow to cool. Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F. Pour the mixture into the pastry case and bake for 15-20 minutes or until just set. Allow to cool in the pan.
Sprinkle the tart with sugar just before serving and caramelize with a small kitchen blow torch until a golden crust forms.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Let me start today’s post by ashamedly confessing that I doubted Donna Hay. I did, I must admit it. I made these cheesecakes and they looked so cute in the oven, I thought that adding the crumble topping would ruin them. But I’d already melted the butter, so I carried on with the recipe.
The topping is delicious and goes perfectly well with the smooth, creamy cheesecakes.

Preheat the oven to 140°C/285°F.
Make the base: process cookies in a food processor until crushed. Add the almond meal and butter and process until combined. Grease a round 22cm springform pan and line the base with baking paper. Press the crumb mix over the base and refrigerate (I left it in the fridge overnight).
Place the ricotta and cream cheese, in a food processor and process until smooth. Add the sugar, eggs and vanilla and process until combined and smooth. Pour the mixture over the base and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until set.
In the meantime, make the crumble topping: place the cookies, macadamias, vanilla, sugar and butter in a food processor and process until roughly chopped.
After baking the cheesecake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, top it with the crumble mixture and bake for a further 10 minutes or until top is golden. Allow to cool in the pan, then serve.

Serves 8-10 – I halved the recipe above, used 1/3 cup (80ml) capacity mini pans (with removable bottoms) and got 9 mini cheesecakes (baked for 25 minutes, pans only buttered, I did not line the bases with paper)

You quickly put the ingredients together, pop the baking pan in the oven and go do something else – in my case, watch Mr. Linus Roache *sigh* prosecute the bad guys. After that, you’ll make a lot of people happy – 25 bars are enough to share with your family and your coworkers. :)

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter a 22cm (9in) square pan* and line the bottom and sides with foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides. Butter foil as well.Start with the brownie layer: place the chocolate and butter in a medium heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Stir frequently until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove the bowl from the heat. Stir in the sugar, vanilla, and salt with a wooden spoon (I prefer to use a silicon spatula). Add the egg. Stir in the flour and beat with a wooden spoon until the batter is smooth, glossy, and beginning to come away from the sides of the bowl, 1-2 minutes. Spread the brownie batter in a thin even layer in the bottom of the lined pan. Set aside.Now, the praline layer: mix the flour and baking soda together thoroughly and set aside.Combine the melted butter, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir in the egg yolk and vanilla, then the flour mixture, and finally the nuts. Drop spoonfuls all over the top of the brownie batter (they will spread and cover the brownies entirely during baking).Bake until the edges of the topping are well browned and cracked, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely in pan on a rack.Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into 25 bars.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Pretty much like Bryan Singer really needs a great movie to go back to the good old days, this panna cotta requires something delicious to be served with – and before you all go “oh, there she comes with roasted strawberries again”, I added rosewater to them this time, just to make things a bit different. :)

Make the panna cotta: place the water in a small bowl and sprinkle over the gelatin. Stand for 5 minutes or until the gelatin absorbs the water. Place the cream in a saucepan over medium heat with the sugar, vanilla bean and seeds. Stir occasionally, allowing the cream to come to the boil. Add the gelatin and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or just until gelatin is dissolved. Pass mixture through a fine sieve and allow to cool to room temperature before refrigerating. Refrigerate for 4 hours or until set.Now, the roasted strawberries: Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F; place the strawberries in a small baking dish (do not use a shallow dish because the juices will bubble away in the oven) and sprinkle with the sugar and rosewater. Mix well and roast for 10-15 minutes or until the strawberries are soft and syrupy. Remove and set aside to cool completely.Serve the panna cotta in the glasses, topped with the strawberries – this panna cotta is not firm enough to be unmolded.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

I’m not a huge fan of Jamie Oliver’s recipe names style like “the best ___ ever”, “the ultimate ___”, and so on – taste is such a subjective thing, something fantastic for some people might not be all that for others.
But if you allow me, I’ll be a walking contradiction today and tell you that this is the best banana cake I have ever eaten – it’s a good thing my grandma doesn’t read my blog. :D

Make the streusel: in a medium bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, butter and cinnamon with your fingertips until the mixture is lumpy; refrigerate.
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter a 20cm (8in) square pan then flour the pan, tapping out excess flour. Have all the ingredients in room temperature.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a small bowl and set aside. Put the mashed bananas in a medium bowl and stir in the milk and vanilla; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat together the butter and sugar on medium-low speed until fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and beat until completely incorporated. Add the banana mixture (it will look curdled, but that’s OK) and beat until combined. Reduce the mixer to its lowest speed and gradually add the flour mixture, beating just until incorporated. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with a rubber spatula. Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the batter.
Bake the cake until it springs back when gently pressed in the center and a round wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool in the pan completely before cutting and serving.
The cake is delicious and very, very moist – it will stay that way for 3-4 days if kept in an airtight container.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

If you’re looking for a good and quick cookie recipe, this is for you: the cookies
turned out delicious and take almost no time to bake – I had just mixed the dough (half the recipe below) when my sister called, asking if I wanted to go to the movies with her; the movie session was going to start in 40 minutes, and we would need at least 20 to arrive at the mall. Cookies baked and cooling, hair in a ponytail and off we went – there was even enough time to buy popcorn. :)

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F; line two large baking sheets with baking paper.
Beat butter and sugars in an electric mixer until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes), add eggs and vanilla and beat well to combine. Sift over flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, stir to combine, then stir in chocolate and sour cherries.
Roll heaped tablespoons of mixture into rough balls, flatten slightly and place on prepared sheets 5cm (2in) apart. Bake until puffed and starting to set (8-9 minutes). Cool slightly on sheets then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies will puff while baking and flatten while cooling.
Cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Makes 3 dozen – I halved the recipe above, used ½ tablespoon (rounded) of dough per cookie and got 40